And with the false nail measures two inches...
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10 years ago
Re: To the American engineering industry in general and to Mr. Briggs & Mr. Stratton in particular.
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10 years ago
I have always worked on the basis that the 'rule of thumb' was that the width of the thumb was approximately 1". Works for me. I don't have big hands but my thumb joint to tip measures up as 1.5".
My body is much better suited to imperial measurements than metric. Not only 1" thumb but 1 foot feet, 1 yard stride and 1 fathom for outspread arms.
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10 years ago
These basic measurements date back to when the average person was rather smaller than now.
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10 years ago
The last one must be useful on those occasions when you want to measure one fathom's depth by floating on your side! That must be the first time I have seen "1 foot feet" used in a sentence.
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10 years ago
Nevertheless both foot and fathom have their roots in human feet and arms width. Inch was borrowed from the Latin for a twelfth part and a yard has been 3 feet since the 14th century.
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10 years ago
Horizontal arms outstretched fathoms are used to measure the rope or chain to a sounding line or anchor, or for demonstrating the size of the huge fish that got away.
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10 years ago
Ditto, to all of that. Imperial measures all over and none of those funny furrin nonsense things. Napoleon can shove it.
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10 years ago
Imperial for day to day human scale measurements or measurements that usefully need to be easily divided into 3s and 4s, etc.; metric for technical calculations.
SteveW